ConocoPhillips to Sell Oil Sands Assets to Exxon

ConocoPhillips has cut a deal to sell all of its Clyden oil sands property—a total of 226,000 acres--in Canada to ExxonMobil Canada and Imperial Oil for $720 million.

The deal, announced on Thursday, 8 August, means Exxon Mobil Canada and Imperial Oil will buy 100% of ConocoPhillips Clyden oil sands stake, with Exxon acquiring 72.5% and Imperial acquiring 27.5%.

So really, it’s largely an Exxon deal because Imperial is 70% owned by Exxon Mobil.

ConocoPhillips is on an asset purge, hoping to raise $13.8 billion through the sale of its non-core assets. The company enjoys that status of having the largest oil sands holdings in the area, with a total of 1.1 million acres and 16 billion barrels of oil.

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The deal should be closed by the end of September.

ConocoPhillip’s shareholders will be pleased—the money raised in the asset purge will go to dividends and stock buybacks.

Overall, while the supermajors are underperforming the small shale producers in the US, ConocoPhillips is eyeing a return to the non-integrated days. In 2012, it spun off its downstream assets into Phillips 66.

By. Charles Kennedy of Oilprice.com